The Walking Dead Poll: Maggie Made Wrong Call Letting SPOILER Die

A majority of Walking Dead fans say Maggie (Lauren Cohan) made the "wrong call" letting a member of her team die in "Acheron: Part 2." Spoiler warning for TWD Season 11 Episode 2. After Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) leaves her behind to die in "Acheron: Part 1," Maggie makes her escape in "Part 2" and scrambles to safety inside a subway car surrounded by walkers. Before she can deal with Negan, they're interrupted by Gage (Jackson Pace), who abandons Maggie's group with Roy (C. Thomas Howell) and takes off with their supplies in the preceding episode. Now he's back and begging for help.

Alden (Callan McAuliffe) alone tries to pry open the door to their subway car and save Gage from the walkers about to tear into him, but Maggie refuses: "We open that, they'll all get in," she says, explaining there's not enough ammo to kill the walkers that would follow. Gage apologizes and pleads for a second chance, only for Duncan (Marcus Lewis) and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) to side with Maggie. He's doomed.

Gage stabs himself repeatedly in the heart to spare himself from being eaten alive. Maggie, Negan, Alden, and the rest can only watch as walker teeth and fingers tear into Gage, making him the first casualty of the final season.

A poll aired live on Talking Dead Sunday shows 53% of viewers voted "no" when asked if Maggie made the right call with Gage. The other 47% voted in favor of Maggie's decision, which some viewers called "cold-blooded" when reacting to the gory death on social media.

On The Walking Dead: Episode Insider, showrunner Angela Kang said Gage's death happened because "it was really important to come to a point in this story where a horrible decision had to be made."

"Our people would have let him back in if they could have, but I think when they look at the math of, you've got a herd of zombies coming after you, you were a coward, if we let you in, now we're going to use our ammo, we're going to use our energy. You might die anyway, and we might all die," explained Kang, who co-wrote the episode with Jim Barnes. "I think that Maggie kind of looks at that and she thinks like a general and goes, 'You're an acceptable loss in order for the rest of us to go on.' But that doesn't make the decision any nicer or easier because he also takes his moment to kind of say, 'F you.' Like, if you're going to do this, then you're going to watch me turn in front of you. Like, that's what's going to happen."

Here's what Walking Dead viewers have to say about Maggie's life-or-death decision in "Acheron: Part 2":